The swiss village
of Grenchen was the home of FORTIS when the company was founded by Walter Vogt
in 1912, and it still is today. Mr. Vogt was a great innovator and pioneer: his
original philosophy still forms the basis of today's company's policy. " ..the
manufacture of good quality Swiss watches, in innovative designs at affordable
prices.."

1924

The most decisive
year in the history of FORTIS was in 1924, when Walter Vogt met John Harwood,
the British inventor of the automatic wristwatch. Harwood had already been
looking for two years to find an industrial partner to massproduce his invention
in Switzerland. In the founder of FORTIS, he discovered an enlighted defender of
"the automatic wristwatch" concept. Walter Vogt backed the project and provided
considerable financial resources to putting this invention into
production.

1926

The world's first
selfwinding wristwatch in series production the "Harwood Automatic" was
presented at the Basle fair and attracted intense interest.

1930

In the 1930's,
FORTIS produced two more classic automatic watches which became famous products:
First came the "Rolls", a wristwatch, which was to become legendary with a
winding system developed by Leon Hatot of Paris. The watches name was derived
from the motion of the movement inside the case to wind the movement.

1931

FORTIS produced the
Autorist, which used another automatic mechanism invented by John Harwood. The
watch was powered by movements of the strap by means of its attachement to the
watch.

1937

On the occassion of
the company's 25th anniversary FORTIS manufactured their first chronographs
which are admired for their precision until today. "Wandfluh", the name of the
Jura massive close to Grenchen as name of the FORTIS Chrono became known
throughout the world.

1943

The latin
wordmeaning of FORTIS is "strong" and with the presentation of the first
waterproof watches from Switzerland FORTIS again perfectly meets the market
demands with their most successful model "Fortissimo".

1947

Some decades later
to its first appearance on the market the alarm wrist watch enjoys renewed
popularity thanks to the efforts of FORTIS.

1954

FORTIS takes up the
manufacturing of the alarm watch, thus becoming closely associated with the
world-wide distribution of the most serviceable timepiece ever
marketed.

1956

FORTIS wins the
leading chronometer awards conferred by the Swiss Insitute for Official Watch
Timekeeping Tests, awarded to their waterproof alarm watches of the
"Manager"-series. Every single "FORTIS-Manager" alarm watch tested, obtained the
supreme distinction "especially good results".

1957

In Tokyo 600
watchmakers celebrated the so-called "FORTIS day" in Yamaha hall on the 26 th of
November. The company invited the Japanese watchmakers to promote the new
electrical regulation system "BEP" presented by FORTIS and as thus the good
relationship with the members of the Japanese watchmakers society.

1962

The name of FORTIS-
synonymous worldwide for reliable automatic watches from Switzerland- continues
with their jubilee watch on the occasion of the company's 50th anniversary
"Stratoliner" and the "Spacematic", a 25 atmospheres tested absolutely
wateresistant anchour watch, high precision automatic, with date indication and
chosen by the members of the American astronauts team that year.

1965

With the upcoming
quartz watches from Japan FORTIS like all the other Swiss brands had to face a
competition on the market, which a lot of them could not stand. The FORTIS
answer on this challenge, based on the companies experiences in waterresistant
diver watches was the development of the "Flipper" watch. For the American
market: the "FORTIS-Cobra", a most striking design which was a real hit and
enormous success in those swinging times.

1975

FORTIS set the pace
in watch fashion with the "Flipper quartz leader" model, a great success in more
than 40 countries the following years. This watch range incorporated the
original FORTIS Container System, allowing the movement and bracelet to be
interchanged within seconds.

1982

The "Flipper quartz
leader" provides besides steel and 18 ct. gold bracelets a wide range of
colourful straps and thus made this FORTIS design a hit in the early 80s, worn
for example by The Rolling Stones, Roman Polanski, Leonard Bernstein, etc.. The
"...aristocrat of the plastic watches"..V. Philibert, Europa Star.

1987

On the occassion of
the company's 75th anniversary FORTIS sets a trend by relaunching the automatic
wristwatches which had been synonymous for the brand in the glory past. Besides
the Original FORTIS Container System with the successful range of the "FORTIS
Logo Swiss" collection and the Harwood being the world's first automatic
wristwatch in series production, FORTIS relaunched the legendary pilot's watches
with their clear functions and easy to read dials in the typical FORTIS design
that year and marks the renaissance of mechanical watches, a trend which a lot
of Swiss watch companies followed until today.

1992

FORTIS steps into
space on board of the first advertising and art painted space craft, a Russian
proton rocket. One dial of a limited series of the FORTIS Stratoliner automatic
chronograph participates in the first "space museum" in orbit.

Since then a close
cooperation between FORTIS and several Russian space institutions lead to the
development of the FORTIS OFFICIAL COSMONAUTS CHRONOGRAPH, which was tested on
the border of modern physics and under spaceflight simulation and proved its
reliability on the wrist of the russian cosmonauts even in open
space.

1994

After two years of
testing and preparation the Yuri Gagarin Russian State Scientific-Research Test
Center of Cosmonauts Training in Star City chose the FORTIS OFFICIAL COSMONAUTS
CHRONOGRAPH to be part of their cosmonauts official equipment.

Developed in
intensive cooperation with the experienced experts of the center the FORTIS
automatic chronograph received its unique design which meats the cosmonauts
needs in every detail of its function.

1994

The space mission
EUROMIR I crew was the first to which the FORTIS Official Cosmonauts Chronograph
Sets were presented to in October. Since then the FORTIS Sets were presented to
all Russian cosmonauts of the Gagarin Center and the FORTIS Chronographs proved
their reliability on the wrists of astronauts and cosmonauts in their
professional activity and during several extra vehicular activities in open
space.

1995

Deeply involved in
the world of aviation the FORTIS Chronographs were the timekeeping instruments
of the world height record on a MIG 25PU double seater -non experimental-
aircraft with a civil passenger, honoured by the guiness book of
records.

1996

After a successful
launch of the FORTIS Cosmonauts and Pilot's collection in Europe FORTIS started
its market approach with a spectacular debut in Asia.

1997

The FORTIS OFFICIAL
COSMONAUTS CHRONOGRAPH was chosen to be the official watch of the Russian-German
space mission MIR 97.

On the occassion of
the company's 85th anniversary the world's first automatic chronograph with
mechanical alarm was presented at the Basle fair. In close cooperation and as
per the demands of the cosmonauts developed, FORTIS exposed this mechanical
speciality in a limited anniversary edition of 100 pieces in platinum, to be
followed by a steel version later.

1998

The Hungarian Air
Force uses the FORTIS Pilot Professional Chronograph Automatic to equip their
pilots. The 47th tactical fighter regiment fly with FORTIS.

The Russian
cosmonaut Vladimir Dezhurov is a nominated crew member to fly to the
international space station ISS, which is going to be launched this summer. He
joins the presentation of the FORTIS OFFICIAL COSMONAUTS CHRONOGRAPH AUTOMATIC
ALARM in Portugal and Spain. In the Planetarium of Lisboa he answered all
questions of the press concerning the manned space program and his experience
with the FORTIS Automatic chronograph during his work outside the MIR station in
open space.

The premiere of the
FORTIS world novelty in Spain took place in Barcelona on the occasion of the 10
th anniversary celebrations of "THE WATCH GALERY".

The ISS cosmonaut
raises great interest and answers the questions of the audience concerning the
FORTIS chronograph which he tested as part of his official equipment supplied by
the Yuri A. Gagarin Cosmonauts training centre.

The FORTIS ART
EDITION is presented on the occasion of the Basle fair.

The international
awarded painter and sculptor Gerd Winner has created an individually numbered
and a limited wristwatch collection, the WINNER EDITION.

Please
remember that this is not an official guide as to
the history of this company and thus may not be
100% accurate by all accounts, if you do see any
errors then please do not hesitiate to email
the webmaster.